Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life

Deb 7 Me 3

This is a biopic of a fellow called Serge Gainsbourg. We follow him from pretentious youth through his adulthood rise to prominence as a songwriter and performer of controversial French pop tunes. We are introduced to him as a young man in the pre-war period. At this point in the movie we are introduced to some recurring thematic vehicles that are quite interesting. The parts about his youth are the best parts of the movie because there is a story progression you can follow. From there on out it is merely a list of reenactments of this guys life, which may be well presented and true to form, but without any context or story. It’s like reading random notes in a stranger’s diary. All the ingredients for a good movie are here, but they need to be defrosted before putting them together as this film left me cold.

After the movie Deb “Googled” him and found that he had indeed done a lot of neat things with some prominent people over a long span of time. These interesting things weren’t in the movie. Nor was there a time reference, didn’t know if we were in the 60s, 80s, current or what. And really didn’t care after a point, it is just heartless.